Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel) (25 page)

“I don’t know him,” she said. “It’s just his name on my sign off sheet, which means it has to be a fake replacement too, right?”

“Probably.” I knew Eve had faked Jacob’s signature for our replacement, but I didn’t know Jacob’s name was on Cindy’s replacement too. Was someone still trying to bait replacement agents? Brad Cestrum was still out there somewhere. It would also mean that the authorities were wrong about Brad only targeting me—and that I shouldn’t be the only Necronite under police protection. “Let me see it.”

She thrust a piece of paper in my hands. There was Jacob’s signature at the bottom of the page. He was the supposed A.M.P. for her client tomorrow, some woman by the name of Judy. It was the same signature on Eve’s paperwork. Since I knew Eve forged Jacob’s signature, who forged this one since Eve was in jail? Or maybe she did more than one before she was arrested? If so, why did she fail to mention this to me when I questioned her?

“Did you ask Frank about it?” I asked. Frank was Cindy’s handler.

“The FBRD is conveniently holding him for questioning right now. Sound familiar?”

“Did they suspend you from replacements while they’re investigating?” I asked. If someone was targeting agents, it would’ve been smart to protect all DR agents.

She shook her head no.

That made the FBRD look guilty as hell. “If Brinkley is right and the FBRD is responsible, maybe they hoped you would get yourself killed.”

“Jacob doesn’t even have a FBRD-certification.”

“Somebody’s lying,” I said, certain. “If we can talk to him, maybe we’ll get a better sense of what’s going on. Maybe even who Brad Cestrum is and how he is involved.”

“That’s why we need to go over there and talk to him. We need to drill a hole in his watermelon head and get some answers.”

“Easy, girl,” I said. I stepped into my new shoes and pulled on a black hoodie.

“Nice shoes,” she said “So you’re coming or not?”

I might not know where Ally or Brinkley was, but I was 90% sure Cindy was the next target. I couldn’t let her wander off alone. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go.”

Cindy wanted to drive. I didn’t want Cindy to drive given the fact she seemed a little less stable than usual, but I let her anyway. She was a nervous wreck and that instability made me nervous. But hey, wielding a hunk of metal seemed to give her a false sense of control, so I let it go.

Whatever gets her through the day.

“Let me ask you something,” I said, trying to fill the silent car with conversation. She didn’t even glance my way. “Anything weird going on with you?”

“Do you mean besides talking to an angel that no one else can see?”

I told her about my electrical problems and what Rachel and kooky Mr. Reeves had said about superpowers. She gave me a strange look. “Maybe I don’t need a plumber after all.”

“Please tell me why you think you need a plumber,” I said.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?” I said. I thought I was being awfully honest with my confession. It wasn’t fair that she got to hold back.

Finally she said, “Let’s just say I have to be careful around toilets.”

“Like they talk to you or something?” I pictured the lid flipping open and closed like a mouth.

“I just can’t be in a bathroom if I’m emotional,” she said. And that’s all she would give me. Weird, because bathrooms, or sometimes my bed, were exactly where I hit if I was emotional.

Jacob’s place was located off of Haywood Lane. It wasn’t anywhere near as high class as Cindy’s place or at least as legit looking as mine. I had a real sign and employees—just Ally and a maid—but Jacob worked out of his mother’s house, with only a little sign out front that said “Certified Psychic Jacob Willis” in black paint on a wooden board. Who the hell certified psychics?

Cindy climbed the three-step cinder block porch and gave a few hard knocks. The screen door rattled and shook with each bang. But no one came.

“How do you know he’s here?” I asked from the bottom of the steps.

“His momma told me,” she said and knocked again.

Finally, a little kid opened the door. He had an orange stained mouth and grubby fingers. The kid looked sticky. “Who are ya’ll?”

“We’re looking for Jacob,” she said.

The kid looked her up and down. “Are you a patient?”

A large, rotund woman who dwarfed the doorway nudged the boy out of the way with a fearsome swing of her hips. “Client,” she said. “He ain’t no doctor.”

“Mrs. Willis,” Cindy said. “We spoke on the phone.”

“He went down to the store. He’ll be right back. Come on in and wait.”

We filed into the small dwelling one at a time. His mom pointed us around the corner to a small room that was set up for Jacob’s “clients.” The room was more like a dark nook, separated from the living room by a plastic beaded curtain. Inside the nook, two folding chairs sat up beside a plastic covered card table.

His mom pointed at the empty chairs. “Just wait here.”

Cindy leaned over and whispered once she’d gone. “The least he can do is talk to us. It’s not like he saw me squeezing the life out of him or anything.”

Fifteen minutes later, Jacob, a tall, thin guy in his late twenties, turned up with a greasy sack in one hand and two cartons of cigarettes in the other. His sandy hair was slicked to his head, big eyes vacant, sunken cheeks and thin lips just made him look more gaunt and angular. He froze. If he was psychic, he looked completely surprised to see us.

“Did I miss your appointment?” he asked.

“We didn’t have an appointment,” Cindy said. “We just need to talk.”

The food sack hit the card table with a fat thump. He pulled out a huge burger wrapped in plastic. He scattered the fries all over the brown sack after he flattened it with a hand. With his food spread out in front of him, he finally took a seat.

“Do you know a woman named Judy Ludlow, or a man named Brad Cestrum?” she asked.

“I remember you,” he said. “You asked me this on the phone.”

“What kind of services do you offer?” I asked, hoping that if I showed interest—even flattery—he might be more willing to impress us with his knowledge.

He gave me a grease smudged price sheet. I could get a palm reading for $10 and a tarot reading for $25.

Cindy repeated the names. “Do you remember meeting them for a sign off?”

“No. I don’t know anyone by those names.” His eyes flicked to mine as he shoved a handful of ketchup covered fries into his mouth. He stared for a moment too long. “I have a feeling that you’ve got romance troubles.”

“Really?” I asked. Was it written on my face or something?

Cindy tried to get his attention again, holding up her paperwork. “Can you verify this isn’t your signature?”

Jacob ignored her, his eyes wide and dark. “All you’ve ever wanted was to be loved. So it scares you.”

“Hey,” Cindy snapped. “Answer my question.”

“It’s one thing to be adored,” Jacob said. “It’s another to love someone back. He adores you, but you love someone else, don’t you?”

“Wait—” I said. “You saw all that on my face?”

Cindy slapped the paperwork down in front of him and put her whole body between us, stretching over the table and everything. “Have you ever seen this?”

Having broken the eye contact between us, Jacob was forced finally give Cindy his attention. “That’s not my signature.”

“Can you verify that?” Cindy said. “Do you have something you’ve signed that we can compare it to?”

Without those creepy black eyes burning through mine, it was easier to regain myself control. Logic prevailed. He was a scam. So what if all I’ve ever wanted was to be loved? So did everyone. I probably smelled like Lane because we were just together and I didn’t look happy, so there was probably trouble. A drunk hobo could guess as much.

Jacob pulled off a dusty drape covering from a piece of neglected furniture in the corner. Dust billowed up into the air. He pulled a fat folder from the cabinet.

“Here,” he said. He lined up all three sheets side-by-side, two white sheets and a carbon copy, each signed by him. He even took a pen from his desk and signed again on the file folder itself so we could see all four signatures in a row. Cindy put her paperwork beside the sheets.

We leaned close, our eyes measuring every curve and shift of his signature. I broke the silence first. “They’re different.”

“So you don’t serve as an A.M.P. on death replacements at all?” Cindy asked.

“Death-reading is not my area of expertise,” he said with a wink.

Cindy straightened. “Do you realize someone has been going around signing your name? Do you even take proper steps to prevent identity theft? Do you know I could have been killed today under the false assumption that you, as an A.M.P., verified all these replacements?”

“How I run my business ain’t none of your business.”

“It does when people are trying to kill me!” Cindy yelled.

Both Cindy and I turned toward the clicking beads of the moving curtain to find Jacob’s mom in the doorway.

“Get out of my house.” She repeated herself when we didn’t move fast enough. “Do you have a hearing problem? I said get out of my house.”

“Obviously we’ve misunderstood each other,” Cindy said, her voice cooling.

“I didn’t misunderstand nothing,” she said. She reached up and gave her blond ponytail a tug as if to say she were serious about hauling our butts out. I already figured that. I didn’t need any displays of dominance to get the point. “I’ve been watching the news, knew I recognized you. You’re trying to say my boy is responsible for that accident. You’re saying he’s going around trying to get people killed.”

“Let’s start over.” Cindy assumed the voice of a lion tamer. “I’m Cindy. This is J—”

“Get the hell out of my house.” She moved toward us. “Someone turns out to be special and you just want to persecute them. Well, my boy ain’t gonna be your sacrificial lamb.”

“Wait a minute.” I wasn’t even going to point out the complete illogical mentality behind her reasoning. She knew she was talking to one of those persecuted victims, right?

Jacob who had been beside me the whole time, slipped a card into my open hand. “In case you need help making your decision,” he said in a whisper.

His mother edged closer. Cindy and I maneuvered around the other side of the table, away from the pair, moving back through the beaded curtain. Just before we crossed the threshold something caught my eye—a picture hanging on the wall beside the door frame.

In the picture, four people and a baby stood smiling: Jacob, his momma, a woman I didn’t know, and someone else. Beside the mystery woman was Eve who held a baby. BAM! Here was my evidence. If I gave Garrison this picture, then he might believe our story about Eve’s fake signatures even if she won’t confess.

“Yes! I got it,” I squealed, snatching the picture off the wall and showed it to Cindy. “This is all we need!”

Jacob’s momma charged, I mean charged like a bull with a spear in its butt. “I told you to get the hell out of my house!”

I pushed Cindy over as I scrambled for the door. She got me back in the doorway, when she shoved me through the screen out onto the lawn. I hit the ground on both knees.

The same time that my knees connected with the dirt and stray gravel migrating from the driveway, an explosion rocked the house. I bent down low and covered my head, inhaling the wet scent of earth.

“What in the Lord’s name?” Jacob’s mom said and stopped chasing us. Through the unhinged screen door and around the woman’s thick calves, I saw a large spray of water pouring into the hallway. The toilet seat landed in the hallway too, just outside the bathroom, propped up at an angle against one wall.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Don’t ask,” Cindy said and yanked me up out of the yard and pushed me toward her car.

We were out of the driveway and into the street before Momma Mayhem made it down the stairs, cursing us for destroying her house.

Cindy didn’t stop speeding until we were blocks away. “Holy shit!”

“Do you affect water pressure or something?”

Cindy bit her lip and for a minute it made me think of Ally. “—or something.”

“And you couldn’t tell me that sooner?” I asked, my voice still an octave too high. “Oh my god, I’ve been freaking out about spontaneous combustion and you explode toilets!”

Chapter 21

“We should talk about it,” I pressed.

“No,” Cindy insisted.

“You explode toliets! I explode electronics,” I argued for the tenth time. “That’s not fucking normal.”

“Nothing is wrong with me,” Cindy shouted. What little remained of her composure was lost. Her face was bright red and her hands shook in little fists by her side. “If you say another word about it I’m leaving.”

And that was that. I didn’t want her to leave so I kept my mouth shut. But damn, it was hard. I felt better, knowing I wasn’t the only one, but I needed to process.

We managed five whole minutes of silence, sprawled in defeat across my living room furniture, before she spoke again. Cindy pointed at the picture in my lap. “I can’t believe you stole that.”